332 Remarks upon the state of 



Figs. 

 The purple and yellow varieties of this delicious fruit ripen 

 very well with us in the open air, if the wood is carefully pro- 

 tected from frost during winter. A tree of each has borne 

 fruit in my garden for several years. 



Apricots axd Peaches. 



The first are certain bearers if protected from frost, but 

 with us the bloom is so early, a week before the peach, that 

 they are generally killed. I have prepared several stocks in 

 pots, and intend to keep them during winter in the cellar, as 

 recommended in your 5lagazine. The latter are killed about 

 every other year, near the Ohio river, by frost: while on the 

 south shore of Lake Erie, two degrees north of us, they are 

 never or very rarely injured. The peach insect has however 

 made such ravages, that many are discouraged from attempting 

 its culture, although with care it may be grown as well as ever. 

 Our climate, however, has changed very considerably since the 

 early settlement of the country, when the peach grew with the 

 greatest luxuriance, and every tree produced gocd fruit. They 

 sometimes bore the second year from planting the stone. The 

 winters then were mild, and the seasons not subject to such 

 extremes of heat and cold. The earth seldom froze in the 

 forests, where it was covered with leaves. Now, since so 

 large a portion of the trees are cut away, the summers are hot- 

 ter and winters colder than formerly; the heat being not so 

 equally distributed, although the mean temperature is about the 

 s^ne. 



Plums. 



The plum grows in the western country in great luxuriance, 

 several varieties being indigenous to the soil. The fruit of 

 some of them is large and fine, especially in the rich prairies 

 in the vicinity of Circleville, Ohio. They are in a manner 

 free from the depredations of the curculio, so ruinous to the 

 cultivated and exotic kinds. The only remedy I have is to 

 shake the trees repeatedly through the day, and catch the 

 fallen iosects on a sheet. A considerable crop may also be 

 saved by examining the fruit every day on the trees not too 

 large, and crushirg the egg with the thumb nail. The egg, or 

 the yoimg larva, may thus be destroyed at any time within 



